Thoroughbred Broodmare Sires Study—3yo Dirt Sprinters

Original article written by Scott Zeigler posted 8 weeks 1 day ago

In this series of articles, I've been looking at the results from the progeny of broodmare sires by age and type. After breezing through the two-year-old sprinters on each surface, I finished out with a study of three-year-old turf sprinters and four through seven-year-old turf sprinters and their broodmare sires. Now the series is shifting back to dirt and back to the three-year-old class.

My methodology has changed a little as I've progressed, and I think I've settled into a good formula for determining top horses, and thus their broodmare sires, for each class. Primarily, I look at four metrics: points, earnings, best speed figure, and stakes wins. From there, I sort each of the top runners by broodmare sire and assign a score based on their relative strength. Each study is a moment in time, particularly since most of these horses are still active. The overall purpose is to revisit the study yearly and be able to mark trends and provide opportunities for overlooked broodmare sires.

This class of three-year-old dirt sprinters was quite spread out with my top 30 horses coming from 19 different broodmare sires. The results don't differ drastically from the two-year-old class with Storm dominating again with a broad and strong group of five runners. This is down slightly, emphasizing the competitiveness of the field, as he had seven progeny from his mares of a 28 horse two-year-old grouping. He had the top runner, a filly, Night Shark ($1,375,000 earnings, 96 Best Speed Figure, 12 stakes wins,) who did the bulk of the work in pushing his class past Walk Off Grandslam. The other four progeny, a colt, Theatrician ($276,000, 93, 5,) and three fillies, Halestorm ($388,000, 92, 3,) There's Magic ($238,000, 92, 4,) and Song to the Siren ($199,650, 94, 4,) were relatively mediocre with all three fillies in the bottom third of this group of top-30 runners. Of course, they've also won 11 stakes races among them, and their speed figures are only slightly behind the top runners. Storm's three-year-old class was 223 deep with 125 earners (56%.)

The aforementioned Walk Off Grandslam had four in the top 30, led by another filly, Spirkle ($769,750, 93, 7.) He wasn't among any of the top two-year-old broodmare sires, though that's expected based on the age of his mares. With 375 three-year-old runners and 179 earners (50%,) his two-year-old class was deeper at 375, but there were only 130 earners (35%.) Walk Off Grandslam's mares only produced 252 yearlings, and his youngest broodmares are now 11-years-old. His influence as a broodmare sire is on a marked decline. Still, after Spirkle, his active mares landed three other fillies on the list, From the Ground Up ($265,000, 94, 6,) Empiress, $314,600, 95, 4,) and Baby Bunny ($226,250, 93, 4.)

Next up is a returnee from the two-year-old list, Most Spirited, who had three fillies on the list: Hot Walker ($301,000 , 94, 6,) Meta Moon ($298,750, 94, 4 ,) and Anxiety ($230,500, 92, 6.) Most Spirited primarily gets attention here for having some breadth among the class, though his top runner, Hot Walker didn't quite match up to either Night Shark or Spirkle. It is, though, impressive considering his class was only 150 horses deep with 90 earners, a whopping 60%. He was pensioned in Year-64 with a final class of 222 fillies now at age two. He has potential for long production as a broodmare sire, though he only has a class of 78 yearlings from his mares.
The remaining top broodmare sires are fairly fractured with only King of Stars and One Look Back landing a pair of runners each. More notable is who rated horses at the top of the list. Exile of Kings, nephew of King of Stars, had arguably the second best runner in the class in the colt, Warbringer ($842,250, 100, 6,) who won the $200k "Inspired Fox Stakes" on Friday. Buildyouanempire's colt, Lil Bit Dangerous ($504,000, 96, 5,) and Plenty of Fire's colt, Striker's Ace ($570,000 , 95, 7,) round out the top five. The other broodmare sires to land horses in the top 30 were: Arcadian, Bugs Bunny, Dark Prophesy, Fortune and Glory, Get Out, If Looks Could, Kinectic, Make My Million, Turn the Tables, With Intent, and World Gone Mad.

Next, I'll look at the broodmare sires with progeny who are between four and seven-years-old, some of which are plugging on and some who have moved on to life as sires and broodmares. If this study turns out in any way like the turf sprinters' study, I'd expect several repeats and at least one "surprise" addition.

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